Nothing particularly interesting in the video... its just the usual from talking points television shows that arbitrarily grab an "expert" to represent a group and then pit them against each other.

And honestly, would anyone expect the difficult nuances of any science to be well articulated or communicated on a faux news entertainment show (be if Fox, CNN, MSNBC, or any of the boutique independent channel versions)?

I love the part at the beginning where she says neither she nor Nye are climate scientists. That's quite true -- but she's even less qualified than Nye, and she's on a freaking policy committee. Whatever happened to the brain trust concept?

Nothing particularly interesting in the video... its just the usual from talking points television shows that arbitrarily grab an "expert" to represent a group and then pit them against each other.

And honestly, would anyone expect the difficult nuances of any science to be well articulated or communicated on a faux news entertainment show (be if Fox, CNN, MSNBC, or any of the boutique independent channel versions)?

These sorts of interviews are important because this is how a significant number of people in the developed world get their science news. Bill Nye is doing a great job lately of leading the science offensive.

My only frustration with this format is that it is used to discuss climate change. Don't take me wrong, climate change is real and it is going to have real effects. The problem is nobody that is watching or participating in that show has the ability to stop it. Climate change will never be dealt with effectively because it is a global problem and we aren't a global community. If the US passed sweeping carbon emission laws tomorrow in an effort to combat climate change it would do next to nothing because the rest of the world wouldn't be bound by them. As long as we are 200 or so separate countries with competing interests we will never solve an issue like this. I would much rather the time be spent discussing evolution, the pros and cons of genetically modified organisms, or the whole non-link between vaccines and autism. Those are scientific conversations that people in our society still need to hear and have the ability to make all of our lives better. I don't think a discussion of global warming is going to accomplish anything other than depress us all because there is literally no way we can get our shit together to address it.

I was surprised that the new regulations in China were referenced in the debate, since, as far as I can tell, China is still going through its industrial revolution.

Though Bill Nye and a rep of the Republican Congress aren't the people that I would like to see on the debate, like you said, that's what people see, and I really hope that people see this debate and recognize who came out on top.

This was on NBC and was just about the only interruption in Olympic coverage on the channel in the last week or so. There were plenty of people watching this that didn't necessarily turn it on because of any predetermined political bias. So you are likely correct in your assumption, just incorrect in it having anything in particular to do with this topic.

Normally the host would take an independent stand they would then have 3 people Nye, the Congress Woman, and a third person who would be there out of fairness to represent all views on the subject.

They would then pretend this person has a totally qualified professional with a valid scientific opinion no mater who they were or how crazy and unsupported their ideas are. Nye would have had even less time to state his case and the host would not have pointed out the fact that the other side opinions were only supported by an ever shrinking number of of people on the extreme fringes of the field.

It is basically unheard of for them to only have two people on and only let the accepted scientific side present the facts unchallenged. This is a huge step up in coverage and a step away from the attitude that the news must present all sides of the story no mater who wrong they are.

If the US passed sweeping carbon emission laws tomorrow in an effort to combat climate change it would do next to nothing because the rest of the world wouldn't be bound by them. As long as we are 200 or so separate countries with competing interests we will never solve an issue like this.

So. Hmm. Where to begin.

The ~200 countries in the world are not all the same size, and neither are their economies. If Tuvalu, say, started burning unicorn carcasses in open pits to heat water to drive wind turbines to generate electricity ... well ... that'd have no measurable effect on global warming. In fact, if the bottom 50 or 60 economies ALL started burning unicorn carcasses in open pits etc etc, it'd still make bugger all difference. Those countries can and should do something to reduce their emissions (if for no other reason than all the bad karma that comes from burning unicorns), but in terms of continuing, halting or reversing global warming anything they do is all but irrelevant.

The US economy is the largest single economy in the world. And not just by a little bit. It's twice as big as China, the next biggest. The US is as big as No.s 1, 2, and 3 combined. The US is over 20% of the golbal economy. The US is larger than the bottom 194 economies. The bottom ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY FOUR. Out of 211 in total.

So let me rephrase your statement, to make it more accurate:If the US passed sweeping carbon emission laws tomorrow in an effort to combat climate change it would MAKE A HUGE DIFFERENCE.

Pretending 'the US is just one lil ole cog in a huge machine, and shucks nothing we do could make any difference' is only slightly less abusrd than pretending the climate change isn't happening at all.

The US is the biggest player but you can't in good faith suggest that the issue doesn't require a global response. If the US passed major climate change legislation it wouldn't impact every other nation on Earth burning fossil fuels.

My argument isn't against something being done about climate change. My argument is that our current global political structure makes it nearly impossible to solve global issues.

The US would be the biggest one to sway on such an issue. I will give you that, but that doesn't mean it would be enough to somehow reverse the effects of global warming we are already seeing. The other major industrialized nations on Earth would still be contributing to our global CO2 levels at a much faster rate than our planet can counteract naturally.

We are already on a course for fairly catastrophic changes, and the US is the only player in a real position to take steps to keep it from being even more catastrophic. If we were to put the kind of effort into it that we did into, say, WW2, we could dramatically reduce our emissions over the course of the next twenty or so years, and then export the technology we developed while doing that. As far as the other big players go, Europe is already ahead of us, and would be happy to follow our lead if we took the lead. China is not really in nearly as good a position to do anything as we are, since anything that would prevent them from maintaining double digit economic growth could easily result in a revolution, and India is such a complete clusterfuck it's amazing that they can even feed their population, much less develop and build an entirely new energy infrastructure.